Prevention
Bad guys and good guys: Instructors point out mistakes and teach how to avoid injuries in training Jiu-Jitsu
Instructor John Danaher, from Renzo Gracie’s academy in New York, divides injuries suffered by Jiu-Jitsu practitioners into two groups: catastrophic injuries and benign injuries. The ones he calls catastrophic are those that happen at a specific moment. To Danaher, catastrophic injuries are more difficult to avoid and much more common with high-performance athletes. Fractures, ruptured ligaments and severe sprains are some of the most common examples.
Daily injuries are the ones that do not generally catch the attention of athletes and heal quickly, only needing time or quick medication to heal. The danger of the benign injury, explains the instructor, is the accumulation of a series of such injuries that may lead to chronic problems. Although it also touches on more serious injuries, this report sought from renowned instructors and health care professionals the way for practitioners to avoid day-to-day injuries. We also asked each one to point out the training mistakes that lead to injury.
Gracie Barra America instructor Marcinho Feitosa believes Jiu-Jitsu is a sport that demands fighters use their heads: “If practiced intelligently, Jiu-Jitsu hurts very little,” opines the three-time world champion. In his experience of over 15 years as a teacher, the man from Rio now living in California recites an old maxim to explain injuries to practitioners, generally the less experienced: “Most of them occur when the student tries to force the position. The secret is to let go to win.” With years of experience in training athletes, physiotherapist Fabio Perissé is direct in pointing out the spinal column, the elbow and lumbar region of the spine as the areas most wracked by injuries. The choir of instructors also points out the knee and wrist as joints that suffer on a daily basis in academies.
The bad guys and the ways to deal with them
Out with the unfortunate. That unhappy movement that causes an injury that no one can avoid. The accident. With a little effort and observation, it is easy to identify the causes of the injuries that are common in Jiu-Jitsu. Feitosa gave the tip about the lack of limits; an instructor of 14 years, Leo Dalla agrees with the Carlos Gracie Jr. black belt: “Sometimes, it is the sheer pride of students not wanting to tap out to a fully sunk position,” comments the leader of Leo Dalla Jiu-Jitsu, in Northern Virginia. Orientation from instructors is crucial for Fabio Gurgel: “The most important of all is to teach students how to respect the limits of their bodies. This also helps to define the type of game they will have in Jiu-Jitsu,” the four-time world champion affirms. Two-time openweight world champion Rodrigo Comprido points out another of instructors’ responsibilities: “Poorly matching sparring partners.
Two nutty or rival training partners should never train together.” Dalla calls attention to yet another important factor in matching partners: “There should not be a great disparity in size or technical level.” To this point, John Danaher adds that pushing students beyond their limits is another grave error: “Tired people make mistakes. When they are pushed beyond their abilities, students end up trying risky moves that put them in dangerous situations.” Lack of proper warm-up is unanimous among the causes of injury. “My warm-up is composed of technical simulations.
Thus the body warms up carrying out the movements of the sport themselves,” reveals Danaher. Gurgel, who also simulates fighting movements during warm-up, adds: “I also use rubber resistance bands to develop strength and speed,” the Alliance general reveals. Ricardo “Cachorrão” Almeida has a more philosophic view of the warm-up in the practitioner’s routine: “I believe a lot in the warm-up as a transition of the mind and body from life away from the mat to our perfecting ourselves as practitioners of Jiu-Jitsu. My main objective is to bring the student to a high degree of concentration with which to practice the sport,” the four-time Brasileiro champion, now an instructor in New Jersey, sums up.
If warming up before training is vital, stretching shortly after should be taken seriously, as the physiotherapist Perissé emphasizes: “These days we know that stretching before physical activity doesn’t prevent injuries, stretching should be done as training to prevent injuries.” Along the same line, Danaher suggests practicing a little less than usual: “Yoga is good for preventing muscular tears.”
What more can be done to make the body more resistant to injury? Strengthening the muscles is the general consensus, but each professional has their own recipe. Fabio Gurgel thinks it is important to reserve some class time to work the muscles: “I feel we should set aside the first 30 minutes of class time for this, as often students don’t have time to lift weights separately.” Comprido follows the same line and presents two alternatives: “Muscular strengthening can be part of the warm-up and may be done by either lifting weights or in the pool.”
“Tired people make mistakes and end up trying moves that put them in dangerous situations”
John Danaher
Cachorrão lays out the benefits of muscular strengthening in the life of the student: “This type of work will improve the balance, coordination, strength, and cardio-respiratory capacity.” Feitosa, however, does not feel muscular strengthening is vital to the practitioner, although it is extremely important to high-level athletes. “For the student that wants to learn Jiu-Jitsu well, but not prepare to compete in high-level competitions, I feel the sport is enough. I don’t see any reason for muscular strengthening.”
John Danaher also agrees on the importance of muscular reinforcement, but sees problems in using weight-lifting equipment: “These exercises make the muscular fibers more susceptible to tearing and leave the body vulnerable.” The American instructor defends the use of more natural muscular strengthening techniques: “Lifting weights and kettle bells make the body more resistant.” Danaher’s experience is echoed in the teachings of Doctor Michael Colgan, a specialist in physical conditioning who created his own system for muscular strengthening. Colgan’s method does not isolate the muscles like weight-lifting equipment does.
“It is better to tap out and continue training than to be in traction for a month or more, while the others evolve and you are doing nothing”
Leo Dalla
The scholar is didactic: “Athletes use their muscles as a group, which is why one should not work them separately.” Also preoccupied with fighting movements, Fabio Perissé adds: “We cannot forget that there are several muscles in the body that lifting weights does not strengthen. These muscles lie deep and are responsible for the stability of our joint segments.” To Perissé, the practitioner can achieve good results by working with a specialized physiotherapist to stabilize the different segments.
The little ones
More and more Jiu-Jitsu is being recommended as a physical activity for children. That being the case, it is natural that one would worry about their safety. Ricardo Cachorrão makes it clear right off the bat that teaching children has its own particularities: “In our classes we do not teach more injury-prone techniques like the footlock or the kneebar and chokes. We also take greater care in teaching takedowns and body-to-body fighting.” Feitosa also takes a cautious approach and affirms that the instructor should be sensible: “With chokes, for example, I seek to be more selective in the children that will learn them and I am always reinforcing how I want them to be extremely careful in applying them.”
Perissé goes over some tricks in teaching Jiu-Jitsu to children: “We should avoid matching sparring partners of different weights and levels of strength even more, as it is common that children will be the same size but different ages, with different strength.” Beyond caution in the techniques to be taught, children demand something else to keep them interested in the activities and doing them satisfactorily.
“The body of someone that doesn’t warm up and doesn’t stretch is like an un-greased bicycle chain. And if you peddle too hard with a poorly lubricated chain, it snaps!”
Marcio Feitosa
“Warm-up is always playful, with educational movements that make the children warm up as though they were playing, but knowing that that is a very important part of the class,” explains Gurgel, who is backed up by what Comprido has to say: “The games should help teach without the children realizing it. They should learn to take responsibility, as they are learning techniques that may cause injury. It is also very important they learn to roll and to give up.”
For both children and adults, the secret is to respect the limits of the body, not skip steps in training and take care of the well-being of training partners, so that they will take care of their own safety. Practitioners should keep in mind, however, that injury is a part of practicing sports. “There is no way to reach a goal in a sport without assuming a certain degree of risk,” states John Danaher.
Preventing injury:
Bad guys
- Lack of warm-up
- Stretching before training
- Not respecting the limits of the body
- Failure to take care of training partners
- Excessive pride preventing the student from tapping out to a hold
- Poorly matched training pairs
- Unsafe environment (academy is too small, wet floor, pillars without padding, overcrowded classes)
Good guys
-Warm-ups that simulate fighting movements
- Stretching after training
- Muscular strengthening respecting the movements specific to Jiu-Jitsu
- Respecting the limits of the body
- Know your technical level and have the humility to tap out to holds
- Sensibility of teacher when matching training pairs
- Safe environment in academy
- With children, dynamic and playful classes and care in teaching dangerous positions
June 21st 2008 Posted to
Events
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